The Evolution of Animal Crossing

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What we're seeing nearly a week into our new life with animals.

By Craig Harris

Animal Crossing: City Folk marks the third release of the Animal Crossing series in the US, a franchise born in the US on September 16, 2002 with the GameCube debut. In those six years, the series has subtly evolved across two consoles and a portable. With the release of the newest edition next week, we thought we'd take a look at the key elements of each version's design and show how things have changed from system to system.

The Game

Even though the series has been available in the US for more than six years now, there are probably many readers out there still unfamiliar with the franchise. Animal Crossing was one of the early "casual" experiences out of Nintendo, a design that didn't have a goal beyond having a good time in a virtual world.

When you start Animal Crossing, you first set up your character and the name of the village that you'll be moving into. Once you've been dropped off, your life with animals begins: you're the only human in a world of cuddly critters. Dogs, horses, kangaroos, cats, rhinos, hippos…you name the animal, it's probably represented as a character in Animal Crossing.

Now, your life in Animal Crossing is whatever you make of it. You can harvest fruit and sell it to Tom Nook for money, which can then be used to buy furniture for your in-game abode. You can go fishing or fossil hunting to fill up your village's museum. You can plant flowers to attract insects, and go on a bug hunt. Or you can simply help out your villagers with whatever mundane task they ask of you.

Party with the animals in Animal Crossing.

The village within Animal Crossing is a living, breathing environment that works on a realtime clock. If everything's set up properly, your Animal Crossing village will be based upon the Northern Hemisphere seasons: if it's Winter and nighttime in real life, it'll be represented that way in your village. The game has its own calendar of events, from Fishing Tournaments to holiday celebrations that occur on specific days and sometimes at specific times; the game does everything it can to encourage players to sign on as often as they can, because chances are there's something new to experience in the village at any given moment.

And even with the endless gameplay there are still goals to achieve. Paying off your mortgage to build a massive multi-story house, earning fishing trophies during tournaments, or grabbing every collectible thing for the museum are but three of the ultimate tasks within the Animal Crossing experience.